I can't read or speak russian.

The people, both uhigur and han, are warm and friendly towards foreigners. You'll run into a range of experiences and opinions. Some being more willing to discuss them 1on1 after a bottle of baijiu. Xinjiang has excellent wines and distilled liquors that pair well with the heavy, spicy food.

The coffee tends to be kinda bad.

You'll hear mandarin, uhigur, and what I thought was Russian. Some of the older uhigurs can't read chinese characters.

The food is excellent, they use a lot more mutton, then beef, pork is least common, but sometimes you see it.

It gets quite a bit of snow.

There's more cops and old folk hired as security(i forget the word for them) than elsewhere in China.

spoiler